Presidential candidate Mitt Romney visited the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Warsaw, Poland on Tuesday, where he met with military veterans and the mayor of Warsaw. As he was departing, he was peppered with loaded questions from the press corps, whom he has largely ignored during his overseas trip. Some examples, courtesy of the CNN transcript:
CNN: ???Governor Romney, are you concerned about some of the mishaps of your trip????
NYT: ???Governor Romney, do you feel that your gaffes have overshadowed your foreign trip????
Washington Post: ???What about your gaffes????
The ???gaffes??? in question concern Romney making transparently obvious observations about the state of the London Olympics and the festering hell-hole of the Palestinian ???economy,??? respectively. He didn???t actually say ???festering hell-hole,??? because he???s more diplomatic than I am. Romney merely took note of the ???stark difference in economic vitality??? between Israel and the Palestinians, and said it moved him to ???recognize the power of at least culture and a few other things.???
You???d have to be a lunatic with virtually no connection to objective reality to disagree with Romney???s observation. Sadly, that???s a pretty good description of the Palestinian ???leadership,??? which took a break from randomly showering Israeli civilians with rockets to accuse Romney of ???racism.???
Is the civilized world really doing the Palestinians any favors by coddling its leadership, and protecting their sensitive ears from hearing that prosperity does not flourish under corrupt, murderous thug governments? But a press corps eager to gin up some negative coverage of Barack Obama???s opponent decided Romney???s honesty was a ???gaffe.??? Maybe they???re worried that the citizens of America will begin pondering the importance of honest, limited government to a prosperous economy.
At any rate, Romney press secretary Rick Gorka addressed the press gaggle in somewhat intemperate terms, which I must warn the reader that I am about to relate verbatim. Some might find this language a bit offensive, although I come from New Jersey, where it???s considered a polite greeting.
???Kiss my ass!??? barked Gorka. ???This is a holy site for the Polish people. Show some respect!??? Then he told Jonathan Martin of Politico to ???shove it,??? which qualifies as a friendly farewell in New Jersey. Gorka later contacted reporters to apologize for his ???inappropriate??? behavior.
Update: Mitt Romney offered these thoughts about the press coverage of his overseas journey: "You know, I???m very pleased with what I???ve learned on this trip and the opportunities I???ve had to speak with leaders and exchanges we had. And I realize that there will be some in the fourth estate or whichever estate, who are far more interested in finding something to write about that is unrelated to the economy, to geopolitics, to the threat of war, to the reality of conflict in Afghanistan today, to a nuclearization of Iran. They???ll instead try to find anything else to divert from the fact that these last four years have been tough years for our country. There have been years of tumult in the world. And we need to see a better direction taken on the part of our nation."
